Day 20, 7-4-07

This was the best Fourth of July I’ve ever had. We got up, and I made some sort of rudimentary fried dough business with some of the hiker box stuff and the primitive kitchen that I had at my disposal. C and I raided the hiker box for food, and then went to buy groceries at their store. We didn’t have enough, so we went ahead and didn’t pay for a visit, but left him a note saying that we’d send him the money a little later. Which we did. After all this, everyone had long since left, so we hit the trail. We found the Prof really quickly, which was odd. He had left a full half hour before we had. However, he had also taken a wrong turn, and spent that time backtracking, etc, until he could find where he needed to go. I felt bad for him. C and I have done that before…many times, in fact. Mostly due to my exceptional navigation skills…
We passed him. Then we passed So-Close (she hung with us for a while, because she’s determined and stubborn. Good things for a hiker to be) We ran into this Radar Tower thing on top of one of the mountains we were climbing...we saw it, and were a little weirded out, because we weren't sure what it was, and it was a very long way away. We poked around for a while, and I wanted to get closer, then noticed a sign that said it was restricted area. Even though there was noone even close to the area, we decided to keep going. I mean, what do I need to play with the radar for? So we went on. At the very last, we came upon Gretchen. We didn’t pass her, because she was totally in the zone. We ascended with her to this incredible spot called Max Patch. It’s a wonderfully bald mountain, with only long grass capping the top of it. Great views of the recently-exited Smokies and the surrounding everything. It wasn’t that late, but we sat down for a break and began toying with the idea of just making camp on the Bald. Since it was the Fourth, we figured that we would be able to see a few fireworks from the top. Also, C really wanted to camp on top of a bald at least once along the way. So we started setting up Camp. C and I used our poles and tarps from the Hammocks to get something going, everyone else had tents and were ok. We break out food stuff, and eat.

Then a marvelous thing happened. Two hippies and their new child (2 months!) came wandering up to the top with some incredible Trail Magic. The guy (his trail name was freestyle) had thru-hiked a few years ago, and knew that there would probably be hikers up there, so he brought some extra goodies. Now that I look back upon it, it wasn’t all that much stuff. He had watermelon, shared some red wine (a wonderfully dry cab[Yellow Tail, out of Australia. I have yet to get it again, because I like it in my memory so much]), and some chocolate (by Dagoba chocolate, the stuff with spices in it that starts with an X. Xotlcatl? Something like that). Then the night fell, and the fireworks started. They were very faint, just tiny puff-balls of color in the distance, but we could see three or four towns of fireworks going off. It was pretty awesome. They ended, and I snuggled down into my sleeping bag near So-Close and the Prof so we could hang out. And we realized that the stars were out. They were incredible. We spent a long time looking at them and marveling. The Prof rolled off to his tent, and So-Close and I continued to bask in the ethereal glory of it all. Eventually we realized that it was pushing 3, and decided to get to bed.

The Radar Tower of Oddness













Daisies! There were tones of them around the Tower of Oddness.

















A black snake. I don't remember if this was the one that climbed the tree or the one that I jumped outa my skin about.











A cool leaf













C and I on Max Patch. There was an American Flag secured to the top of a pole that had a blaze on it.











Me, taking in the sun, the view, and loving life.













This is how the whole top was like. It was glorious.












The smokies, and the sun setting.













The Crew! Me, C, The Prof, Krebopple, and So-Close!












Even though our country does messed up things, the flag against the sunset brought to mind all the glorious things that America was created to stand for and to serve.